This week has been a bit of a shock to the system in at least one respect. As I pursued the preparation for the opening of my exhibition in Lincoln Cathedral on Monday, the process was held up by the absence of a crucial piece of information. I have been going crazy as my emails and ‘phone calls to the person who I expected to provide this information went unanswered, getting more and more anxious as the arrangements I was making looked as if they might be falling apart.
Today I decided to ‘phone one of her colleagues, only to discover that she is away on holiday, although she will be back in order to support me on Monday morning. It was possible to answer my vital question from another source, and it looks now as if everything is falling into place. (I do wish that she had put an “out of office” message on her ‘phone, as that would have saved an awful lot of anxiety.) There are still a couple of tasks I need to do over the week-end, but I am certainly on target now.
I’ve never realised before to what extent I might be considered a “control freak”. On reflection the problem has been uncovered by the fact that on most other occasions all of the key elements of preparation for an exhibition are directly in my hands. On this occasion, however, I have been acutely dependent upon somebody else’s availability and action. It has been a very uncomfortable experience, fighting a rising sense of panic and the sense of impending disaster. There is a lesson to be learned there.
The good news is that I also discovered today that somebody else has done far more than I anticipated by way of publicising my exhibition. I did enjoy that gin and tonic before dinner tonight!